Migrant Worker Unionization and Inequalities

Most non-EU migrant workers in Europe are concentrated in low-skilled sectors characterized by precarious employment, low wages, and limited access to social protection and labor rights. In this context, labor unions can play an important role in improving working conditions and supporting migrants’ socio-economic and political integration. However, migrant workers often face barriers to union participation, including language differences, mistrust toward institutions, and unstable labor trajectories. Additionally, migrant workers’ claims often extend beyond the workplace to issues such as housing, residence permits, and citizenship rights, requiring unions to adapt their strategies and develop forms of representation that respond to migrant workers’ claims to avoid processes of exclusion and marginalization. The proposed session aims to advance understanding of inequalities in labor representation affecting migrant workers, with a particular focus on those employed in low-skilled sectors.

We invite contributions addressing, inter-alia, topics such as:

• the different forms of migrant worker organizing, including affiliation with established or grassroots unions, worker centers, ethnic associations, and more informal or spontaneous forms of collective organization;
• variations in organizing and unionization across migrant groups; analyses of the factors shaping these differences including: individual characteristics, labor process dynamics, and broader contextual conditions such as legal status, citizenship regimes, industrial relations systems, labor market structures, housing policies, and local governance arrangements;
• the strategies adopted by different unions to incorporate migrant workers’ demands into their activities and structures;
• dynamics of competition and collaboration among unions and other collective actors in the organization and representation of migrant workers.